Tag: St. Petersburg

The St. Petersburg Pier is a wonderful place to visit. The offer great views of Tampa Bay. You can watch boats float around and people fishing from the pier.

                        

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There are several places to eat around the pier. I headed to Doc Fords for some fresh Florida seafood.

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Doc Fords offers lots of seating options. You can sit inside or outside.

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There is a huge aquarium right at the door when you walk in. If you are lucky, you can say hello to Nemo and Dory.

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I sat outside on the patio to enjoy the fresh sea air.

I looked over their cocktail menu. I saw a Dirty Banana listed. I normally do not see this drink on menus. This is my go-to vacation drink when I travel to the islands. I wanted to make sure that I ordered one. If you have never had one, it is a blend of light rum, dark crème de cacao, banana puree, and a chocolate syrup drizzle. This is basically like an adult milk shake. The coolness of the drink was refreshing. The flavor of the banana and chocolate paired so well together. It really enjoyed tis drink.

One of the appetizers that came out was the Calamari. It was lightly breaded and fried. The calamari was tender. They served it with a homemade cocktail sauce.

Instead of the cocktail sauce, I used their three sauces that they had on the table. They were perfect on the calamari. They offered three different flavors:

Colombian Gold Pepper – This is a mango sauce with a mild, sweet heat

Chipotle Pepper – This has a smokey flavor with a mild heat

Amazon Sauce – This was made with habanero peppers and is very hot

Another appetizer was the Captiva Crab cakes. The jumbo lump crabmeat was pan fried so that a thin crispiness was on the outside. They served it with a jicama slaw. This is like a water chestnut. It added a nice crunch. They finished it off with a key lime butter sauce. The sauce made the crab cake delicious with a rich and creamy taste.

I ordered the Seafood Paella to share. I figured it would be a large dish that I could not eat all by myself. They loaded up with jumbo scallops, shrimp, mussels, and fish medallions. Their unique take was adding chorizo sausage. This added a little heat.

All the seafood was placed on top of tomatoes, peas, and saffron rice. The mussels, scallops, and shrimp really soaked up the flavor of the saffron. The fish medallions were flakey and tender. I ended up dipping the fish in the Colombian gold pepper sauce. I liked the sweetness of the sauce with the fish.

I also got to try the Panko Crusted Grouper. The grouper was pan-seared and served on a bed of brown rice. The grouper was flakey and moist. They also served julienned vegetables, spinach, and mushrooms. They topped everything with a honey papaya rum sauce. The tropical flavor of the papaya went perfectly with the grouper. It was not heavy although it was sweet. The spinach and mushrooms added an earthy flavor to the dish.

The food and views were amazing at Doc Fords. I was there during the week so there was no wait for a table. I can only imagine that this place is packed on the weekends.

Check them out at www.DocFords.com

Enjoy!

T

If you are a fan of Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives, you may have seen Guy’s visit to Munch’s in St. Petersburg. It’s a diner that has been serving up breakfast since 1952. I was there several years ago and was back in the area, so I decided to pop in for breakfast.

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I sat at the counter where I watched the food coming and going. I got a nice cup of diner coffee and looked over the menu.

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I went for the two-egg breakfast. I got my eggs prepared over well because I wanted the yokes to be a little firm. It came with a bowl of grits with a lot of creamy butter mixed in. It is the perfect pairing with eggs. I also got a side of corned beef hash. It was nice and salty. I also ordered it extra crispy because I like when there is little extra crunch.

The restaurant was serving up homemade strawberry shortcake for free to everyone eating there. It was a really nice surprise. It was one half of their fresh made biscuits, which were light and fluffy. They topped it with strawberries in a sweet sauce. It paired well with the saltiness of the biscuit (from the butter they put on top while cooking). The whip cream they finished the dessert with was thick and creamy. It was totally homemade. It was a great way to end my breakfast.

I was glad I got to visit Munch’s again. They are a great place for a quick breakfast. Just one reminder I have for everyone is they only accept cash, so come prepared.

Check them out at www.munchburger.com

Enjoy!

T

St. Petersburg, Florida is a beautiful place. The entire city is growing quickly. There are so many places to enjoy breakfast, lunch, and dinner. During this visit to St Petersburg, I wanted to get brunch and I decided to check out a restaurant I had visited years ago called 400 Beach Seafood.

You cannot enjoy brunch without a mimosa and bloody Mary. They were not bottomless, but they were still a great price. The mimosa was made with Brut champagne and fresh orange juice. The sweetness of the juice helped cut down the sharpness of the brut. The bloody Mary was made spicy, just the way I like it. It had a wonderful horseradish flavor. It was a drastic contrast to the mimosa.

I started off with a bowl of Clam Chowder. It was extremely creamy. They loaded it up with tender, fresh clams and big chunks of potatoes. It was a good ratio of clams to potatoes. The soup was seasoned perfectly.

I also tried a little of the Island Seafood Chili. This was extremely hardy. It was thick but not like a traditional beef chili. It was more like a stew. They used a variety of seafood which was nice. Each bite had a different texture.

For my brunch meal I ordered the Crab Cake Eggs Benedict. They took an English muffin and laced a fresh crab cake on it. They then put a traditional poached egg with hollandaise sauce on top of the crab cake. They accented it with a few pieces of fresh spinach. The egg was light, and the creaminess of the yoke soaked into the crab cake, which added a rich texture to the crab meat. The crab was sweet tasting and there was a lot of it.

A potato hash came on the side. These were diced potatoes mixed with onions and peppers. There was also fresh fruit. Both were the perfect complement to the filling breakfast.

I also was able to try the Fish Tacos. These were blackened Mahi Mahi pieces topped with avocado, a fresh made mango salsa, and queso fresco. They drizzled a charred lime aioli on top. The few bites I got to try highlighted the fish. It had a great spice to it from being blackened. The mango salsa was my favorite part. It added a complementary sweetness.

I really enjoyed the dishes I got to try at 400 Beach. Even the season visit have me several surprises. This is definitely a place to would continue to come back to.  I loved seeing how busy St. Petersburg was. Life has been getting back to normal and it feels great.

Check them out at www.400beachseafood.com

Enjoy!

T

St. Petersburg has many fun beach bars to check out. Toasted Monkey is one of those. Thy have the main bar in the front and the actual beach bar in the back.

The day I visited it was cold, so sitting outside at the beach bar was out of the question. Yes, it does get cold in Florida. I stayed nice and warm inside enjoying a cocktail.

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While there I also ordered a few starters to snack on. The calamari  was a given to me. We were so close to the water I knew it would be fresh. The calamari was breaded and fried. It came out crispy and tender with a hint of pepper. I did not even need to use the marinara sauce on the side. The flavor from the pepper and the salt I added was enough.

I also ordered the zucchini sticks. This was zucchini that were cut into stripes, breaded, and deep fried. The zucchini was fresh and tender, and the breading was crispy. It was a light breading, not taking away the texture of the zucchini. There was a nice salty taste to the breading. They also sprinkled a little parmesan cheese on top that added extra flavor.

Toasted Monkey was a fun little local place to hit in St. Petersburg. The staff was friendly and there seemed to be a lot of locals who visited. I would want to go back on a warmer day to check out their beach bar.

Visit their website at www.TheToastedMonkey.com

Enjoy!

T

Going out to dinner with friends is a wonderful experience. When friends of mine learned I write a food blog, they made sure to pick a new restaurant for us to try. That is one of the reasons we went to 400 Beach in St. Petersburg, Florida. The other reason is because it was my birthday.

It was a beautiful place with seating both inside and outside. Since it was way to hot to eat outside, we sat inside to stay nice and cool. There were tropical decorations everywhere.

  

We kicked off my birthday with cocktails. I ordered the Raspberry Cosmomosa. This was raspberry vodka, fresh lime juice, orange juice, cranberry juice, and simple syrup. They topped it off with sparkling wine. My waitress surprised me and included a candle for my birthday.

  

After being totally embarrassed and blowing out the candle I took a sip. It was tasty. it was very sweet and I could not pick out just one flavor. All the juices and liquor worked really well together. I liked the added bubbles that the sparkling wine brought to the drink.

Since we were there with a group, we ordered tons of appetizers to share at the table. Every single one of them was amazing.

First up was the fried calamari. It was lightly battered so that the tenderness of the calamari shined through. It came drizzled with a garlic aioli and topped with shaved parmesan cheese. The cheese gave it a slight saltiness.

The grilled sea scallops were my favorite appetizer. The scallops were extremely tender, almost like butter. They were also very sweet. What made this dish stand out was the Soba noodle salad that came with it. It was cold pasta but the sauce they used was amazing. It had hints of sesame oil for a nutty taste. Even without the scallops, this would have been great.

We also ordered the Artichoke Manchego Fondue with crab meat. I thought this would be like any typical artichoke dip but I was totally wrong. The Manchego cheese was super creamy. It spread nicely on the tortilla chips. The crab added extra texture along with the artichokes but the cheese hide those flavors. This dish was all about the cheese.

400 Beach offered several options when it came to oysters. We went for the Oysters Rockefeller. They were the perfect size for everyone to get to try one. They were loaded with spinach, bacon, and a delicious Hollandaise sauce. The salty, smoky flavor from the bacon really accented the brininess from the oysters. They were cooked well, so that the oysters were not chewy.

The Seafood Louis salad was also great for sharing. This salad was loaded with shrimp, scallops, and crab on top of Romaine lettuce, sliced hard boiled eggs, sliced avocado, and tomato. They covered it in a chili lemon Louis dressing. This was a fresh tasting salad.

It was time for another cocktail before the main dishes came out. The Sunset Martini sounded perfect. It was a combination of orange juice and mango rum. They added a little Chambord to add a little extra color. This was sweet but not as sweet as my first drink. With the orange juice it reminded me of a mimosa. the added mango flavor really made this a tropical drink.

For my main dinner I ordered the jumbo shrimp. I had them grilled. they came with rice and fresh vegetables. It was a lot of food. The shrimp were grilled nicely. They were great dipped on the fresh made cocktail sauce. The rice was really just filler, nothing special. The fresh vegetables were sautéed with a little salt and pepper. The natural flavor of the vegetables really came through.

I had the best time at 400 beach. I was there with great friends, I had a wonderful waitress, and the food was fantastic. I would definitely want to go back and try one of their other dishes. Check them out at www.400beachseafood.com

Enjoy!

T